


Lost and Found

by oli_oop



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: BAMF Natasha Romanov, Blind Clint Barton, Brain washed boyfriends, Bucky Barnes Feels, Canon Disabled Character, Clint Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Getting Lost, Hurt Clint, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt/Comfort, I didn't want it to be angsty but here it is, M/M, Memory Loss, Sorry Not Sorry, Tearjerker, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump, ambiguous timeline, roughest shit on the planet, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-09 05:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7788751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oli_oop/pseuds/oli_oop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clint lost his hearing, he had gotten back on his feet. He was capable of becoming Clint again. </p><p>When he lost Coulson, he was changed, but still Clint. Sadder, less trusting, but still Clint. </p><p>Then they took Bucky. He never knew he could feel alone in a crowded room like that before.</p><p>What else was there for them to take?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One

“God fucking- You work this thing!” Bucky spluttered, handing the GPS to Clint. Clint took it gingerly. Five minutes ago, Bucky was berating Clint for trying to take it off of him. They had been heading toward a rendezvous when Clint made the mistake of allowing Bucky to try and work the GPS while he put a bandage on his upper arm where it was cut. In that time, they were so lost they couldn’t even find the trail that Clint had been leaving as they walked.

“If you didn’t fucking walk like a ghost,” Clint muttered and Bucky growled. “I know, I know, your arm’s not the only thing that’s wired a certain way,” Bucky huffed, but walked harder and less carefully. “I see the problem, here, big guy.” He waved the GPS at Bucky. “You mashed the damn thing.”

“Dammit,” Bucky muttered. “Where’s this rendezvous point?” Clint made a pained face.

“Aren’t you supposed to remember this shit?” Bucky stopped walking and turned to glare at him.

“Sorry, but my memory isn’t all that great anymore,” He snapped, taking the GPS back and pushing buttons in vain. “You were sitting right next to me during briefing.” Clint nodded with pursed lips.

“I, uh.” He brushed a hand through his hair. “I guess I just thought you’d remember,” He said sheepishly. Bucky’s face fell.

“You had your fucking hearing aids off, didn’t you?” Clint took back the GPS.

“Maybe if I try and open it to see if the wires are broken,” Bucky slid a hand down his face.

“Why do they even put us on missions together,” He sighed.

“I mean, we make a decent team in the field,” Clint replied. Bucky shrugged his shoulders.

“We’re gonna live in the field if we don’t get back to the rendezvous sometime this week.” Clint barked a laugh. “You don’t remember even the direction of this place?” Clint shrugged.

“He said either west or east. I wasn’t paying close enough attention.” Bucky crossed his arms and nodded slowly.

“Definitely not north or south.” Clint shook his head. “Okay. You’ve got the comms, right?” Clint nodded. “Well, that way’s west,” He gestured to where the sun was falling. Clint’s face also fell.

“Oh, come on, Robocop,” Clint grumbled. “What if he said east?” Bucky winced slightly at the nickname.

“Then I’ll find it and send for help.” Clint gritted his teeth. “We’ll take half the time. If we start now we should be able to get a few miles before we have to break for camp.” Clint frowned. “Anything else you can remember?”

“Something about a river. If one of us finds it, we wait there for the other, alright? Next time, you will not touch the GPS, got it?” Bucky laughed.

“Maybe you shouldn’t get shot at so much. Then I won’t have to navigate.” Clint turned on his heel in defeat. 

  
  


***

“So,” Clint began. It was starting to get dark. “Breaking for camp?” Bucky nodded on his end of the comm, before grimacing and shaking his head at himself.

“Yeah,” He flopped the backpack on the ground. “Wish we would’ve packed something softer.” Clint laughed.

“Yeah. And some cheeseburgers.” His stomach rumbled in response. He patted it from his bed of leaves and his backpack. “At least the moon’s out so we don’t need flashlights or anything.”

“Yeah.” Bucky replied lamely. Clint punched at his backpack and rolled over.

“So what are you hungry for?” He asked. Bucky scrunched up his face. 

“I dunno.” 

“Aww, come on, man. You gotta be craving something pretty hard. It’s been since like, two since we’ve had some grub.” Bucky said nothing. “Or do you like, shut that off when you’re in the field?” Clint asked, only half joking. The rumours are real around the Tower. 

“No,” Bucky spat. “I’m not actually a robot, Barton.” He said coldly. Clint winced, glad that he wasn’t actually in the presence of the Winter Soldier.

“I know. I was joking.” Clint said. There was silence from the other end of the line. Clint was about to launch into an apology speech to avoid being left behind if Bucky found the rendezvous first. Bucky started talking before he could spit it out.

“I could go for some chilli. Beans, beef, the whole works.” Clint nodded, stomach growling.

“Oh man, and cornbread,” Bucky punched at his backpack and rolled over onto his stomach. “With sour cream and shredded cheese,”

“Gross!” Bucky exclaimed. “You should have stopped at cornbread.” Clint let out an indignant huff before he sighed and stared into the sky. He remembered this morning, when Steve had told him he’d be taking Bucky with him. He had been so annoyed. 

“What, you think I can’t handle this little thing by myself?” Clint said, half joking. Since New York, he hadn’t been sent on a single mission by himself. Steve rolled his eyes so hard Clint heard the grinding.

“No. We need somebody to show Bucky how we do our job around here. He’s great in the field, but he doesn’t know anything about the follow up.” Clint gave him a look.

“And you think I’m the best man for the job?” Steve snorted.

“If you’re teaching Bucky how to do the paperwork, you can’t hand it off to Natasha to do.” Clint’s face turned a shade of pink as Steve nodded into his coffee. “She writes in cursive, Clint. I’m not sure how you thought that was going to work.”

“You know, I was supposed to be teaching you how to follow up on missions.” Clint said, exasperated. “Of course, this happens. What are we even going to put in our mission log?” Bucky laughed.

“Mission logs are no problem. You should have seen some of the ones I used to turn in,” He chuckled as Clint remembered that Bucky had a more colourful past than even he did.

“I dunno, man. I’ve submitted some rich ones myself.” They didn’t talk for a minute. Bucky was contemplating telling Clint stories, and Clint was just about ready to fall asleep. 

“You should shut off your comms and hearing aids.” Bucky stated sharply. “Don’t want the battery to die on us.” Clint muzzily did what he was told.

“‘Night,” he said into the woods. 

 

***

 

Clint woke when a shaft of sunshine hit him in the eyes. He grumpily put his arm up over his face before he realised that his window was on the other side of his bed. 

“Oh. Yeah.” He sat up and looked around as he futzed with his comms and hearing aids. Once they were online, he checked to see if Bucky was awake.

“I’ve been awake an hour.” He snorted. “Damn birds screeching got me out of bed at sunrise.” Clint rolled his eyes and tried to get the crick out of his back.

“Yeah, like that’s going to bother the likes of me,” He grumbled. “How far have you gone, you think?”

“Three miles, about.” Clint groaned as he realised his neck also had a crick. “What are you doing?” Bucky asked dubiously.

“Sleeping on the ground has some serious drawbacks. You remember when it was cool to camp out in the yard? Now I just feel like I’ve been in a fistfight.” Clint collected his shit and started walking in his designated direction.

“You were in a fistfight.” Bucky said drily. Clint laughed and scared away some chipmunks. 

“Mostly a shootout, though.” He replied. They walked in amicable silence for a while before Bucky whistled. 

“Turn around and look on the horizon. Storms, coming in fast.” Clint swore as he turned on his heel.

“That’s just great. Nothing I have is waterproof.” He groaned. Bucky scrunched his face as he broke into a comfortable jog. 

“What matters? You won’t be wet forever.” Clint growled as he frantically shoveled through his pack.

“Hearing aids, bro. Those aren’t waterproof.” He found a wrapper from a Clif bar he had eaten like three weeks ago and stuck it in his pocket. “I found a Clif bar wrapper I should be able to keep them mostly dry, I think.” Bucky huffed.

“For once, you’re out on top for being a slob.” Clint shook his head, grinning.

“Whatever, Barnes. I’ll leave ‘em in til the first drop of water hits my body, then we’re on our own.” As it turned out, that was promptly after Clint had finished his sentence. He grouchily folded the wrapper around the little pieces of plastic and put them in the inner pocket of his vest. He decided to get his hustle on, hoping he could find some shelter.

***

 

Bucky jogged until he was mildly uncomfortable. If this went on much longer, he’d have to save his energy. He was soaked through, chaffing, and chilled to the bone. As he pushed his way through some thicket, he vowed to start keeping notes of meetings. The rain was finally slowing, and that he was grateful for. He crested the hill and looked down into a small clearing. He immediately got a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the fat drops of rain. As he had crested the hill, he was sure he had seen movement in the treeline. Bucky trepidatiously half-walked, half-slid down the hill toward the center of the clearing. 

“Barton?” He called out, hoping the other agent had just decided to catch up with him. He saw a man with a rifle step out of the treeline, and before he could react he heard the crack and felt a sharp pain in his neck. A dart. They were taking him in. He ripped it out as earth-shattering panic set in. Men swarmed out of the trees. His knees gave out and he was driven into the soft earth. 

“ _ Barton! _ ” He bellowed into the air, hoping Clint had replaced his comms and hearing aids. He fell into unconsciousness, hands all over him and restraints clicking into place.


	2. Evening, Day One. Day Two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint- unlike every other member of the Avenger's team- was one hundred percent, unadulterated, high-octane Homo Sapien. And humans make mistakes.

Clint yelped and yanked the one hearing aid with the comm attached he had just placed into his ear. Bucky’s comm had released an unholy amount of feedback.

“What the fuck,” He muttered as he placed it gingerly in his ear again. “Barnes? Barnes? Come in, man, I think something’s wrong with your comm,” A rustling noise came over the comm as Clint replaced his other hearing aid. “Barnes?” There was a beat before a muffled voice came over the comm.

“There’s another one. Find him.” Clint was met with more feedback and he quickly removed the comm. That definitely was not Barnes. Clint turned and started running in the other direction.

 

***

 

Bucky woke up to a sickeningly familiar sight. A chair. A headrest. A tray with a mouthguard. He thrashed against his restraints. They creaked, but didn’t give. His heart pounded in his ears as a door opened and a well-dressed man walked in, smiling all the way. Bucky’s lip was bleeding. The man crouched before him, smile widening too much. He looked like he was going to be split in two. 

“Finally, our Asset back in the rightful hands.” He said smoothly.

_ James Buchanan Barnes, 107th Infantry. _

“Get him in the chair.”

_ James Buchanan Barnes, 107th Infantry. _

Three pairs of gloved hands got him off the floor, thrashing and screaming. The man took a well-timed step back as Bucky swung both of his hands in his direction.

_ James Buchanan Barnes, 107th Infantry. _

One pair of hands forced his jaw open and almost lost a finger. It was the gloves that saved the man's digit as Bucky's jaw snapped shut. They wrenched the guard into his mouth. 

_ James Buchanan Barnes, 107th Infantry. _

His hands were strapped to the arms of the chair. They disabled his metal arm, whittling his chance for escape down to zero. His head spun. They lowered the contraption down and his heart skipped a beat.

**_James Buchanan Barnes, Avenger._ **

 

***

 

Clint had reached the top of a hill. After it started raining, he found Bucky’s clodhopper prints with ease. It didn’t help that it seemed like he walked through a bush and took 97% of it with him, then slid down a hill in the mud. At the bottom of the hill, Clint looked at the evidence of a scuffle. 

“This is where your tracks lead, buddy.” He said quietly. He counted boot prints. “Seven? Seven guys?” He followed some of the prints into the woods. They had been waiting there for awhile. Who the hell were they? He trailed the prints back to a central location about two hundred yards from the clearing, in another smallish clearing. They went to huge imprints of a helicopter. There were places where it looked like somebody had been dragged. “Son of a bitch,” He muttered. In the distance, he heard the sound of a motor. Against better judgment, he ran towards it. There was a river and a man in a boat.

“Hey! Hey!” The man slowed and looked into the brush, surprised. “I will give you $100 to bring me to the nearest town.”

 

***

They took The Asset out of the chair after he had passed out. 

“Cryo, boss?” One of the gloved men asked the man in the suit. The man took his time picking a piece of lint off of his shirt sleeve.

“No. I want who he was with. Send him to find his friend.” The gloved man nodded and began the process of preparing The Asset for a mission.

 

***

 

Clint threw caution to the wind and sprinted straight to the agent that was supposed to be collecting him and Barnes.

“We have to go now.”

“I, uh, I’m sorry, you must be mistaken,” The agent tried. The hardness in Clint’s eyes made her pause. “Where’s your partner?”

 

***

 

“Seven men,” Steve said from next to Tony. “You’re sure seven.” Clint made an exasperated noise. 

“Cap, unless the number of men makes a difference it doesn’t matter that I’m sure. I think we missed some HYDRA agents when we wiped the base.” Clint leaned on the bar stool. He was still wet from the rain and from being impatient and clodding through waist-deep water when the man with the boat didn’t dock fast enough. “Thinking back, it did seem too easy,” He murmured. His stomach roared in response. 

“Go get some food and a fresh change of clothes. Tony and I will locate his comm unit.” Steve said, face softening slightly. He was still pissed, but being pissed wouldn’t get Bucky back. Clint obliged, and as he was chewing on a sandwich of questionable origin at the kitchen table, Natasha slid in beside him.

“Are you going with us when we find him?” Clint asked. Natasha nodded once.

“What happened?” Clint drank some coffee from the biggest mug Tony had.

“What do you think happened? I’m a human tire fire and we split up. They must have got around us somehow. I don’t know.” Natasha shook her head.

“You didn’t split up because you are a human tire fire.” She stated simply. However, she didn’t argue the fact that he was a human tire fire. “We’ll find him. Eat your sandwich.” She inspected the wrapper for a moment. “Thor’s sandwich. That has peanut butter and mayonnaise on it.” Clint chewed pensively.

“The man might be onto something.” 

 

***

 

The Asset was released into the same spot he was taken in from. He followed sets of tracks around for about an hour until he found one set that wasn’t terminal at the helicopter. He followed them down to the riverbank, where a man was fishing in a boat with a shiny new pole. The man started at the sight of The Asset. 

“Do you want a ride into town, too?” He said eagerly. “That’ll be $150,” 

The Asset waded into the water and got into the boat. He saw a small, glittering town on the other bank of the river, miles downstream. He took the man by the neck, who grunted in surprise. A loud snap echoed in the clearing made by the river. The Asset threw the body in the river and began to navigate towards the town.

 

***

 

“We found him,” Tony yelled from his lab. Clint threw the plate in the sink and chugged his coffee.

“No, no, no.” Steve said when he slid into the lab. “You’re staying here.” Clint’s eyes widened and he set his jaw. “You will be absolutely useless if you’re as tired as you are.” Natasha eyed the pair. 

“He’s been on less sleep in more dangerous places,” Tony shook his head.

“I don’t know about more dangerous,” He pointed to the map. Clint inhaled a painful breath. 

“That’s,” He said quietly.

“The last known location they were brainwashing him.” Tony finished. Clint gave Steve a pleading look. Gears were turning in the Captain’s head.

“Suit up.”

 

***

 

“Honest to God,” The barista stuttered. “I don’t know him. I have never seen him before. He came in, soaking wet, and made a lady drive him somewhere. She’d been sitting there all day, working on some calculus homework I think. I saw a calculus book.” The Asset stared at her, waiting for her to finish. “I swear that’s all I saw. I swear. He came in and the lady asked where his partner was. That’s all.” She sobbed. The Asset nodded, taking in the information. “They drove that way,” She pointed down the street. The Asset dropped her after he ensured she would be no witness. 

 

***

 

“Landing,” Clint warned everyone in the back. Tony dropped down next to them, along with a disgruntled, sandwichless, Thor. 

“Clint,” He had said, wounded. “That had my name on it,” Clint had ground his teeth together in response.

  
“I didn’t know, I’m sorry,” He said flippantly. Clint had just lost the goddamn Winter Soldier, and Thor wanted to argue about a sandwich?

“You are my brother at arms,” Thor had said with his puppy dog eyes. “We are supposed to have each others’ backs, so to speak.” 

“Okay, but so is Bucky, and if I weren’t so worried about him, I wouldn’t have eaten your sandwich.” Thor had creased his forehead at him. “Bucky was taken back by Hydra.” Thor had nodded curtly.

“We shall discuss this with him, then.”

The remaining Avengers got out of the jet. They had a plan to surround the facility, then go in loud with Tony, Thor, and the Hulk while Natasha and Steve went in quietly. Clint was to ensure no one got away. He sighed angrily from his perch. They didn’t trust him, and he couldn’t see what was going on. Every once in awhile, he’d see a flash of green limbs or a red cape or blue thrusters and the toss of a Hydra agent, but beyond that, the comms were dead silent. After a few more minutes of brooding, he tried fiddling with his comm linked hearing aid to see if they were on a frequency that the rest of the team wasn’t. When he didn’t get the telltale feedback from frequency searching, he pulled it out of his ear and felt his stomach drop.

Dead battery.

He breathed three times, measured. He was fired. Well, yeah, he was fired,  _ if he fucking survived to get his pink slip.  _ He imagined Kate getting a flag from Steve and panic welled up inside of him. Just as he was getting ahold of himself, his brain skipped a gear. He felt it slip, like his dad’s old truck with the fucky gear shift. He had seen movement in the treeline. Clint sat forward slowly, trying not to bring attention to himself. His brain struggled to come back from the stall. Why was he breathing shakily again? He was in a whole different place. Maybe Cap was right. Maybe he didn’t belong in the field anymore. If a dead battery on a hearing aid could do this to him-

A flash of silver. His brain caught the gear and revved. No way it wasn’t Barnes.

“Hey, Barnes!” He yelled. A man stepped out of the treeline, long, shaggy black hair whipping in the wind. He didn’t get any closer, but it was absolutely Barnes. Maybe he couldn’t hear him. “I said, ‘HEY BARNES!’” He shouted, even louder. No, Barnes definitely heard him. Maybe Barnes was talking, and because he was an idiot, he didn’t even have a chance to hear him. Clint swung down from his perch and went towards Bucky at a jog. “Hey, my hearing aid battery is dead, you’ll have to get closer,” He stated as he made his way over to his friend. Bucky leveled a gun at him, drawn discretely while Clint was focused on trying to read his lips from a distance. A searing pain tore through Clint’s body and the ground came up to meet him. 


	3. Day Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hydra, Hydra everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Clint’s head spun. He was locked into a reclined leather chair, head strapped to the headrest. 

“What…?” He managed to make out. He remembered that his hearing aid batteries had died, and that’s why he couldn’t hear himself. A man’s face entered his limited field of vision. He turned his head and said something to someone out of Clint’s sightline. Clint’s head was foggy from whatever he felt entering his right arm, but when the guy in the suit came into his field of vision, he felt a chill go down his spine.

“He’s nearly ready,” The man in the suit said with a wide smile. He turned to the other man and said something like ‘good work’, and something about ‘The Asset’. Clint couldn’t hold on any longer. He slipped back into the darkness.

 

Natasha stalked the back of the plane. Tony, without quip or comeback, angrily scoured the video information he lifted from the Hydra base. Thor sat beside Steve, who was in the pilot’s seat. Bruce was blissfully unaware of the archer’s absence, still in his post-Hulk sleep. Once they landed, Tony took the search inside. There was very little conversation as Steve filled Bruce in on the missing members of the team. A blanket of sombre silence covered the Avengers, each looking for Clint in the only ways they knew how. Tony searched with JARVIS. Natasha pulled threads on old aliases, old information highways, old safe houses. Thor went to Asgard to see if his friend, Heimdall could help them in their search. Bruce carefully sipped a sports drink, while he listened to Cap.

“When we left the facility, he was just gone. He had been silent on the comms the entire time. He didn’t even have anything to say when we told him we’d been set up. That facility had a skeleton crew in it, and the… materials… had been moved.” Steve wiped down his face. Bruce put a hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll find them. They’re a pair of stubborn bastards who won’t go down without a fight, and we’re a team of stubborn bastards who won’t let them go without a fight.”

 

Clint was boneless when they moved him from the table to a cell. He couldn’t put up a fight, even if he had the strength. They had pumped him full of a paralytic when they pulled the bullet out of his stomach. The archer, the Avenger, the hero of New York, was drooling on himself and willing his limbs to move. Claustrophobia bubbled hotly in his chest. 

_ Please, God, _ he prayed for the first time in years.  _ Get me out of here. _

When he was starting to be able to feel his body again, the door opened. He couldn’t move himself into a position to see who it was. He only saw the bar of light that shifted over the chair in the corner that he could see with his head lolled to the side. After a few moments of watching the shadows of two people, one unmoving, one gesticulating, someone came to sit at attention in the chair. His partner. Bucky.

 

“JARVIS,” Tony said carefully. “Call the team.” He paused the security cam footage just before the moment that made his heart stop. Everyone filed in, save Thor. “I found him.” He told them quietly. “Well, what happened to him, anyway.” Natasha’s face darkened. “It’s a start.” He started the footage. Clint walked into frame, waving at someone. After a pause, Clint clutched at his stomach and fell to the ground, having been shot. Bucky stepped into frame, holstered his gun, then grabbed him by the vest and drug him away from the camera and into the woods. Steve had his hand over his mouth. Natasha looked cold and far, far away. Bruce was shaking his head.

“I ran some simulations. At that angle, and where Clint grabbed, it hit him right at the center of mass.” Tony spoke carefully. He allowed the team to come to their own conclusions. Bruce’s face twisted in fear, and Steve sat down, holding his head in his hands.

“Where did he take Clint?” Natasha took over the controls. “How did we track him in the first place? How were we lead to this dummy site?” She spat the word ‘him’ like a curse, her Russian accent creeping in on the edges. Tony regurgitated everything he knew. 

“They went south into the woods, and the feed loses them after that. We may be able to track them the old fashioned way if we leave soon. We used their comms. They have tracking beacons in them, and Clint’s went dead at the dummy site. We recovered Bucky’s in the empty Hydra base.” Natasha nodded as she pulled up the last known ping from Clint’s earpiece.

“It went dead?” Steve asked incredulously. “He let it die, or somebody else made it die?” Tony pursed his lips.

“It sent out a ‘low battery’ distress warning. He didn’t charge it.” Steve shook his head and crossed his arms.

“Let’s just focus on finding him.” Bruce cut in. “We can ream him out later, when he’s alive and here with us.”

 

“What the hell is this thing?” One Hydra agent said to the other. They were in charge of searching through the new Asset’s personal effects to ensure nothing could compromise the mission. It was a small, black, moulded earpiece, with another one of similar design.

“Maybe headphones?” The other replied. He tried to turn them on after his teammate handed them over. “The low battery light is blinking.” He inspected them further. “Ooh, hey, there’s a Stark logo on these things. They’re top of the line,” His partner got a gleam in his eye. 

“We could resell them and split the profit.” The guy nodded, and quickly wrote ‘headphones’ on the inventory list. “We’ll take them out of storage in a few days and charge them up, make sure they work, then flip them. 100% profit, and nobody would notice.”


	4. Day Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dead men tell no tales, but apparently dying men never shut the fuck up.

Clint assumed he had fallen asleep at one point. He was now handcuffed to the bed frame. Barnes hadn’t moved, or if he had, he was right back in the same position. Back straight, feet on floor, hands on knees. 

“Barnes,” he bit out. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move his jaw and use his voice. He had no idea how loud he was. “Barnes, we have to get out of here.” He watched as Bucky’s hands gripped his knees tighter, but otherwise, there was no sign that Bucky had heard him.

 

He was trapped. Someone else was driving his body, and he had to sit in the passenger side and watch. Right now, the Winter Soldier had the reins, while Bucky had to watch his hands steal the life out of anyone who got in his way. When Barton said his name, he scrabbled at the cracks of the brainwash, but he couldn’t get any purchase. He knew what was next for Barton, and it wasn’t pretty. He needed to find a way to get him out of this hell. Right after he found a way to get himself out of his own hell.

 

After a while, Clint began to try to get into a more comfortable position. He realised that they had dumped him bare-ass naked once he was able to feel his body again. Every breeze that came through the room sent him into shivers anew. His ankles were also strapped to the bed frame, but after some testing, he found that the bar his left leg was attached to was loose. Watching Barnes, he began flexing the bar back and forth. Even one leg free that they didn’t know about would give him an advantage in trying to get out of here. He had no idea if it made any noise, not that the Winter Soldier gave him any clues. Clint wasn’t quite sure that he even was blinking. After a few flexes back and forth, Bucky moved for the first time in what felt like years. He stood, walked swiftly over to the bed, took a key out of a pocket, and unlocked Clint’s leg. Eyes wide, Clint froze.

“I, uh, I didn’t know you liked it like that, boss,” He said after a brief pause where Barnes had his metal hand looped around his ankle. Bucky’s eyes were locked with Clint’s, wide and terrified. 

“Don’t.” Bucky said clearly. He hooked Clint’s ankle to another bar and let go of his ankle. He walked back over to the chair, but it was like he was glitching. After a few minutes of fighting to either sit or stand, he took the three strides to Clint’s bed in a blink and punched Clint in the mouth. Hard. Then he went and sat back down, shaking. Clint turned his head as much as he could and spat, again and again, to let the blood drain out of his face. 

“Fuck!” He yelled. “Dammit,” He wiped his mouth on his shoulder and looked back to Barnes. He had his eyes screwed shut and was gripping his knees so hard he was probably hurting himself. “I am so sorry.” Clint gasped. “I am so sorry,”

 

They sat there for hours. Clint was freezing. When he tensed after being punched, he remembered that he had been shot. His ever so kind reminder were a few stitches pulling and bleeding through his dressing. Bucky, from the passenger side of his own fucking traitor of a body, watched in horror as Clint would shift to try to alleviate his pain and his eyes would dart across the room to his designated chair, expecting him to get up and hit him again. When Clint finally found a comfortable enough position, he settled his gaze on his partner. 

“You know,” he said, mouth feeling like it was full of cotton. “When I was a kid, my brother and I used to play Cops and Robbers.” He started, not sure where he was going with the story. “It never ended up like this, I’ll tell you that, but what did happen was Barney got caught…”

 

After was was probably the worst attempt at a night of sleep for anyone on the team in a good long while, they met in the kitchen after the sun came up. Stiltedly, they made breakfast for themselves. Very little conversation occurred. While they were eating, Tony began to broach the subject that everyone had been gnawing on all night.

“I think he’s alive.” He said between bites of runny oatmeal. He didn’t gauge anyone else’s reactions, thinking he’d lose his momentum if he had to look at Natasha with dark rings under her eyes. “Who, Hydra included, would pass on an asset like Clint Barton?” He asked rhetorically, taking a deep breath. “Shot in the center of mass like that, he’s only going to make it so far by foot, or vehicle, or helicopter without going critical. Short of teleportation, he’s gotta be close.” Only then did he look up at the rest of his team, his family. Natasha looked guarded, while Bruce looked full of hope. Steve was leaned forward, a fire in his eyes. 

“And where Clint is, Bucky should be with him.” He said assuredly. No one brought up the possibility of Bucky not being with Clint at all.

 

Later that day, while Tony was running simulations based on various center-of-mass injuries and getaway vehicles and how long it would take to lose the injured party, Thor came back to the Tower. 

“Our archer lives,” He said loudly. Steve, who had been packing and going over logistics with Natasha, ran into the living room. Thor was just coming in from the balcony.

“How do you know?” Was what Steve said. What he was really asking was, ‘What about Bucky?’ Thor set his jaw.

“Heimdall cannot see James.” Steve’s eyes widened, and he ran a hand through his hair. He nodded a few times, taking a deep breath.

“How do we get to Clint?” He asked abruptly. Thor accepted that Steve wasn’t in the mood for grieving. 

“Heimdall only knows that he lives. He says there is a dense fog surrounding wherever our archer is, but he is alive. There is still a chance,” He said.

Tony poked his head out of the door to his lab. “Good, I’ve just finished running these simulations. Let’s figure out how we’re going to start the search.”

 

Clint told Bucky stories about everything. Stories from his childhood, from the circus, from the orphanage, even from some missions and how Natasha joined SHIELD. It felt like his mouth was incredibly swollen and like he was lisping, but he was sure Barnes understood him on some level. He had no idea who he was even telling these stories for in the first place. 

“He hasn’t stopped talking for two hours.” Said one Hydra scientist incredulously to the other. 

“He’s dedicated to manipulating our Asset.” Said the other, while nodding and making notes on a clipboard. “It doesn’t matter. The prep team is almost ready.”

It was the most relaxed Clint had seen Bucky this whole feature-length nightmare. His elbows were on his knees, hands clasped, and head down. He knew Clint wasn’t going to make him get up again. Not after Clint had seen the consequences for both of them.

Both men jumped when the door opened a few more tales later. While Clint was wracked with pain from his stomach, Bucky stood at attention. Hands were on Clint now, unlocking this and that. They hauled him to a standing position and dragged him from the room. He frantically turned to see where Bucky had gone. He was standing at attention as the man in the suit from earlier spoke slowly to him. He nodded and followed the man in the suit out of the room. When Clint turned the corner with the gaggle of Hydra fucks, he saw Bucky give him a haunted look over his shoulder. Clint’s stomach dropped. He was alone.


	5. Day Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timing is truly everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I'm actually really sorry about what's going on here. I really wanted to write this whole fluffy thing where Bucky agrees to try sour cream and shredded cheddar in his chili. Alas, I got stressed about my senior year of college and NOW WE HAVE THIS.

His orders were to wait in the operation room. He knew what came next. They were going to inject Clint with liquid fire, something close to what Steve had but wasn’t quite perfect. It would burn out everything that Clint thought he was, could be, and ever wanted to be. Then Hydra would fill all that empty space right back up. Exteriorly, it looked like he didn’t hear what they spoke about. The Winter Soldier didn’t hear a blessed thing. Bucky, however, screamed for release. He knew what they were going to do to Clint. They were going to take the part of him that he counted on the most and make it their own. 

“Does he really need to be augmented?” One of the scientists had said. “His aim is perfect. He will be perfect in the field with this one.” She had jerked her head to the Winter Soldier, doing his best ghost impression in the corner. Her fellow scientist stayed pensive for a few moments.

“You know, I think the guys down in R and D have the perfect thing. We can always give him more precise weapons, but if his  _ vision _ is more precise…” He trailed off. She had nodded vigorously. 

“Oh yeah, you’re right! Yeah, we should bring that up to the surgeons, see what they think. That’s probably bonus material, right there.” They had left the room, allowing Bucky to stand silent guard over the scene of what was bound to be the hardest moment in Clint’s short life. The only thing Clint had going for him was that they had no idea about his hearing impairment. Bucky hoped that he could hijack this runaway freight car before they found out.

 

They had thrown a scratchy gown on him and shaved his head. He stared into the stainless steel of the lights and saw a stranger with a bald head, sunken, bruised eyes, and a big fat mouth. He almost laughed. When they were dragging him into the room, kicking and screaming before the shot in his neck set in, he saw Barnes standing in the corner. Now was as good a time as any for him to break out of the whole Buckybot thing. The world started to slow down once they began strapping him into the chair again. The man in the suit said something to him, but he was way too high to read lips at that moment in time. In retrospect, he really wished he had clamped down a little on his trip so that he could’ve prepared himself for what happened next. Hands had clamped down on his arms and shoulders, to hold him in place even though they had strapped him down, but they were right. The straps weren’t enough once the drug started coursing through his veins. He began screaming before it had even really made it to his heart. Once it did, his screams echoed in his skull like a train in a tunnel. Before it had fully circulated, he had lost his voice completely. His whole body spasmed, cramped, roiled. He felt sharp pain, dull pain, burning pain, icy pain, all at once. The gunshot wound was forgotten as his chemical makeup was restructured, as his dNA was rebuilt. A fact drifted through Clint’s mind idly, in stark contrast to the havoc that was going on around him. They say that it takes about seven years, give or take, for every cell to be turned over in the human body. Some cells live longer than others, of course, so it’s a bit staggered, but about seven years from this point in time, there will be cells that never had the pleasure of sitting where he was in that precise moment. 

He silently willed for the seven years to go very, very quickly. 

 

“Do you really think we need to wait too much longer?” The agent on the left of the personal effects locker asked. “We could just plug them in, make sure they work.” He said quietly. The man on the right side considered for a few moments. 

“I mean, it couldn’t hurt, could it?” 

They ensured no one was would see, which was really just a precaution. Everyone was upstairs, watching the first Asset being made for decades. Being at the bottom of the totem pole usually sucked, but not today. Today, they would get their comeuppance. They found an adapter that fit the two small devices and plugged them into the wall.

 

“Steve!” Tony slid down the hallway, already in the black spandex that went under the suit. “Nat! Bruce! Thor!” He called, voice ragged. “It’s on! It’s on!” JARVIS, who seemed to have a better handle on his communication skills woke everyone up. It was the middle of the night in New York City, not that Tony was sleeping anyway, but the plane was already packed for the next morning.

The plan was to head out, and using Tony’s simulations and maps, search every area possible to find Clint and Bucky. However, tonight, they had been given a gift from a God Tony stopped believing in when he was about 16. Clint’s comms units had come back online. They were giving a steady signal, and it had been right under their nose at the Hydra base. 

The rest of the team rolled out of bed and into the plane. Steve took an uncomfortable seat in the pilot’s chair as Bruce prepared himself for the Big Guy. Thor sat stoically in the back, arms crossed with Mjolnir nearby. Natasha stretched herself out, preparing to tear people in two to get her best friend back. Tony was too jittery to sit in a plane. He took point in front, leading Steve to their destination.

  
  


Bucky felt his Hydra attitude adjustment slowly fading while he watched Clint scream. He railed against it, making a cold sweat break out on his back and forehead. The Hydra agents were too busy focusing on trying to get Clint back into the arm strap that he had slipped during the effects of the serum to really care that he was shaking from head to toe. It had been nearly three hours since they injected him, and he was only now coming back from the brink. They lost him twice. His heart gave out the first time, and the second time he had a seizure. Bucky wondered how many times they had to bring him back to life, and if it wouldn’t have been better to just leave him dead. 

Once they pumped Barton full of more sedatives and muscle relaxers, they peeled open his eyelids. Bucky’s stomach flipped and he shut his own eyes. He couldn’t watch this, not unless he was going to be able to stop it. He was tired of riding bitch in his own body. He bit down hard on his tongue, the burst of blood in his mouth the first thing he’d done for himself in the past four days. He could feel his fingers begin to flex at his own will, shortly after. Not nearly the force needed to get himself and Clint the fuck out of here, but a step. He was just trying to close his fist the whole way when sirens began to sound. His eyes flashed open, trying to ignore the gruesome sight to the left of him. The man in the suit was in front of him.

“Go take care of them.” He said coldly. When Bucky didn’t move, he snapped, “Now!” Bucky jogged down to the entrance that was blaring the breach code over the intercom and was met with a group of people that he would have died to see four hours ago. 

The Avengers. 

“Don’t-” He tried to say. Let them finish. Don’t let them abandon Clint the way he was now. There was so much he needed to say. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve said before he could get his mouth to work. Steve leveled the stun gun to his body, and Bucky struggled to tell him before the voltage had the desired effect.

 

“What did he say?” Tony asked over the comms while bringing Bucky to the plane and strapping him into the restraint seat. 

“I have no idea,” Steve said, clipped. So many questions buzzed around his head. Why hadn’t Heimdall seen him? He was obviously alive. Brainwashed, but alive. 

“We’ll figure it out after we have Clint safe and sound,” Natasha said. “Right now, we have to find where he’s being kept.” 

Steve split them into teams. Thor and Hulk causing a ruckus, as per usual. Tony searching one direction. Nat searching another. Steve searching yet a third. The huge complex sprawled out so far they wondered how they had missed it. 

“Underground,” Tony commented after jetting down his hallway. “JARVIS is indicating that we are underground.” No wonder how Hydra snuck up on Bucky. The helicopter was a decoy, just like every other fucking thing Hydra ever did.

Natasha was hitting the most resistance, which in her professional experience, meant she was going the right way. She eventually hit an observation room, now nearly devoid of life. Only a man, bald and strapped to a table, remained. A choked cry filled the comms. Steve hesitated for the one second it took to get his bell rung by a particularly large Hydra agent.

“ ‘Let them finish.’” She said thickly. “Bucky had said ‘Let them finish.’”


	6. Day Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winning isn't everything.

Barnes came to in the back of the jet. He remembered what had happened and pulled on his bonds frantically. With a rush of glee, he realised his body was listening to him again. He was in control. He snapped the restraints and bolted from the jet, making his way back into the compound. It appeared that the lockdown procedure wasn’t in effect, which didn’t bode well for Clint’s state. The Avengers may have come too early. The sirens still blared, but there were no longer announcements of threat level. It was a ghost town. With all of the work the Avengers and himself had been doing, Hydra was implementing a drop-everything-and-run tactic. They had reasoned that they had more money than God. They could buy new bases and equipment. The minds of Hydra could never be replaced. He rounded the bend to the observation room where the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes seemed to just arrive. Natasha was kneeled on the ground next to Clint, who was still strapped to a table. It appeared that Hydra thought he could be replaced.

“We have to get him out of here,” Bucky said desperately. “They’ll be back, with more people than we can handle.” Clint was beginning to wake up. Bucky felt his pulse in his ears. Natasha peeled herself from the floor, her moment of weakness forgotten. Tony scanned the items on the trays.

“Jesus, what the hell did they do to him?” he muttered into his mask. 

“They wanted another asset,” Bucky said quietly. He worked at the straps on Clint’s arms as Natasha gingerly, lovingly almost, took the apparatus off of his head.

“Do you know what their plan was?” She said quietly to Bucky. He pursed his lips as Steve came back from the hallway with a wheelchair. 

“They were going to give him cybernetic eyes. Make him shoot better.” Natasha’s face was grim and she nodded once.

“Where are they?” Tony asked, juicing up his thrusters. “We’ll take them with us, see if we can…” He trailed off and Bucky nodded. 

“I don’t know. It doesn’t look like they were going to finish it today.” He shivered at the thought of Clint chained to the bed in his current state. 

“We’ll have to find them. Where would they be?” Steve and Bucky carefully put Clint into the wheelchair. He gripped Bucky by his metal arm, mumbling like he had been in his cell. Bucky’s face flashed with fear. He couldn’t wake up here. He would fly off the handle and they’d never make it out in time to miss Hydra’s counterattack. 

“Get him to the jet. Tony, on me.” He said, sprinting in the direction of the research labs. “If there’s anybody who will know what they’re on about down there, it will be you,” Bucky huffed at Tony as they ran through a maze of corridors. 

When Bucky slid to a halt, Tony deactivated his thrusters and lifted his faceplate. They were standing in front of a high security storage area, each with a plaque with a serial number on it.

“How are we supposed to know what they are?” Tony said, trying to get any amount of information from the serial number. Bucky shrugged, adrenaline coursing through him. A countdown was in his head. Five minutes until they came back with friends. He reached out and yanked open a door. Inside, there were fifteen vials of a syrupy green liquid. 

“Keep going,” Tony called as he used the suit to open another vault. 

Three minutes until backup arrived. 

Weapons that Bucky wasn’t sure the inner workings of. A growling animal in a cage.

Two minutes until backup arrived. 

A small white orb that emitted a low hum. An ordinary-looking plant in an airtight glass box.

Sixty seconds. The sirens were eerily quiet. 

A small lockbox. Bucky dove for it, opening the lid. Two steel irises looked into his own.

“I’ve got them! We need a shortcut.” Tony dropped the door he was holding and looked up. 

“Where are we in the dungeon?” He asked, eyes wide. The sound of boots were pounding in from the entrances. Bucky tossed him the box. 

“Keep going down this corridor until the ramps start going up. There will be skylights there. Go!” Tony shut the face mask.

“How are you getting out of here?” He asked, powering up the thrusters.

“Go! They’re coming!” 

“Steve is going to kill me! Hold on!” Tony grabbed for Bucky’s arm.

“Not if they kill you first! You have to go!” Bucky ran toward the sounds of the boots. He would fight them back, keep them occupied for long enough for Tony to escape. Tony hovered there for a moment.

“Sir, if you do not leave now, there will be only a twelve percent chance that you will escape.” He activated his thrusters and flew down the corridor, guilt deep in his gut. When he burst from the skylight, he found with relief that the jet was gone.

“Cap?” He asked tentatively. 

“Thank God,” Steve gasped. “Once we got above ground, we couldn’t get ahold of you anymore. We’re in the air.”

“So am I,” Tony said, heart heavy. “Barnes is still down there. The place is swarming with Hydra.” Tony saw the jet, and as he approached, the back opened for him. He walked in and set the box on the bench. Steve sat woodenly in the pilot’s chair. Bruce, back to being Bruce, was curled on the other half of the bench, and Thor hovered near the back hatch. Natasha stood next to the seat that Clint was propped up in. He was not quite awake, but not quite knocked out, either. She had bandaged his face. Tony made his way to the copilot’s seat. “I’m sorry, I tried to grab him.” He said quietly to Steve. Steve nodded slowly. “He’s the only reason I got out.” Tony’s voice broke.

He was the one that had opposed Bucky joining them the most. Tony and Steve had had screaming matches on screaming matches. Tony argued it wasn’t safe, he wasn’t safe, how could Steve jeopardise the entire team like that? Steve had screamed about second chances and how different Bucky was now. Coincidentally enough, Clint had come for coffee during the last screaming match. It occurred to Tony now that he probably hadn’t even heard the other five. 

“If he isn’t safe to be around, am I?” Clint had asked them quietly. Tony’s argument had shrivelled up and died.

“We are coming back for him,” Natasha said quietly, with fire in her eyes. “We will not leave him behind.”

“We need to regroup,” Steve said tightly. “Get Clint to a hospital.” He nodded. He wasn’t talking to anyone but himself.

 

Clint’s entire body hurt. He thought that he had been moving at one point, and now there weren’t straps across his chest. He wanted to assess where he was, but his limbs were too heavy and it was too dark. Maybe they were treating him like a bird. It’s dark out, so it’s sleep time. 

“Barnes?” He asked, hoping that he was nearby. His cell had been all interior walls, so it was possible they had just shut off the single bulb over his head. Small hands touched his shoulders and he flinched. It was that woman scientist, but why in the dark? “Hey!” He said, trying to swat at her. His body moved so slowly, every muscle to tense a stab in his skeleton. Was he bigger? He felt bigger. The hands tightened. He wondered what that sadist bitch was going to do to him next. She was crueler than the rest. She had tightened his bonds so tight he could hardly feel his hands after they had measured his whole body in some way or another before they filled him with fire. He expected prodding, stabbing, jolting, whatever. What he didn’t expect was a hand to be placed on his swollen cheek. The thumb of this hand idly caressed back and forth, and a wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows. What the hell was going on? He was missing pieces, he knew it. He just couldn’t reach through the dense fog that was the shit that they were pumping him full of. Something was off. Maybe he was hallucinating? His hallucination sure had some cold hands. He was nearly sure that if he were hallucinating to escape the pain, he’d at least let the thing have warm, soothing hands. These hands were small, calloused, and cold. They left for a moment, then came back and pressed something into his hands. His bow, he’d know it anywhere, even in the dark. His head spun. What the hell? He assumed he had dropped it when he got shot. Why would a Hydra scientist be handing him his bow? That was asking for trouble. The small, cold hands took one of his own hands and brought it up to his face. Under his fingers were bandages. What? He gripped at the tape on his cheek, ready to tear it off. The hands were back, pressing the tape down. Why would they put bandages on his face? Another set of hands gripped his forearm and took his bow away. “Give that-” His other hand was brought up to a hard, metal thing. Round. He laid his hand flat on the surface to realise it was embedded in a chest. Tony. His world spun around him. If Tony was there, he wasn’t being tortured by Hydra. Tony let go of his hand and it dropped back to his lap. “What… What happened?” He asked. His whole body was still on fire and he felt like he needed to sleep for fifteen years. Nat, he assumed, put a hand on his shoulder and one on his stupid, bald head. “Where’s Barnes?”


	7. Post-Op

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, karma is just and meted out with a deft hand. Other times, she's sloppy.

The sensation of breathing in the cold, cold air of the cryo chamber refreshed the Asset. It was the closest he got to home, really. He didn’t really have a concept of home, but if he did, it would be cryo. It always meant safety to him. The few breaths it took for him to drop into the deep sleep of Winter were the last real comfort he could hope to have.

 

Once Tony had got him hooked back up with his hearing aids, he was a touch more comfortable navigating the Tower. Tony had hooked in into a main line of JARVIS, constantly in his ear.

“Four steps forward, sir until there is a couch in front of you.” It had taken him a few days to really get the hang of what JARVIS meant by “steps”. He could only assume that he had meant his pre-shave-and-a-haircut steps, which were much longer and more purposeful. He didn’t realise how truly  _ quiet _ he had been prior to his capture. Now, there was a constant cacophony following him wherever he went. Hands on walls, toes into furniture, misjudging how heavy the door was, putting a glass just on the edge of the counter.

“Don’t move,” Bruce had said, winded, moments later. Bitterly, he assumed that JARVIS had summoned him for help. “There’s glass all around, and you aren’t wearing any shoes.”

“I know that,” he had said derisively. Bruce had stammered that he hadn't meant it like that, but Clint just crossed his arms and leaned petulantly on the counter as the man swept up the glass. Bruce didn’t deserve that. There was a lot of bad things happening that good people didn’t deserve.

Tony didn’t deserve to be staying up all hours of the day to try and figure out how to put those damned eyes in his head. They required all kinds of nerve endings and electrical components that Tony didn’t have any instructions for. Tony’s hearing aids were good, but they weren’t good enough for Clint to really understand Tony in full babble mode. Clint had stormed out of the lab, another thing that Tony didn’t deserve. 

Natasha didn’t deserve the back-to-back international missions. She was taking everything and anything up for grabs just to get away from the Tower. Natasha left the night Clint put away his bow, reverently in the bottom of his closet. “You’re going to need that again soon, Clint,” She said quietly, carefully. There was a long pause, where Clint had his hand on the closet door and Natasha had her hand on his hand. Clint turned his head away from her, wrenching the door shut. The next morning, her bed was made and her clothes were gone. Clint didn’t deserve the smell of her on the bed sheets.

Thor went to Jane. He was full of anger that no one on the planet could handle him taking it out on. He hoped that Jane could fill him with gentle words and soft touches. The Tower seemed to reverberate with his parting words. Steve and Thor had been fighting. Clint had been lying upstairs in Natasha’s bed, but it was hard to miss Thor’s retort. “I cannot stay and watch him wither, Captain.” Withering. Was that what he was doing? The word felt pretty accurate. Out of all the things Hydra took from him, (his great sense of humour, his friend, his fantastic hair) they didn't take his ability to cry and make a general mess of his dressings. He was pretty sure he could take them off by now, but he was also pretty sure nobody in the Tower wanted to have to look at that during breakfast.

Steve sure as hell didn’t deserve sitting with Bruce, highlighting names that they had already called and writing down new ideas for people they might get answers from. Bruce manned the phone, and he didn’t deserve getting turned down for all of his requests for favours in the entire scientific industry. Steve watched Bruce get more and more tired as he called surgeon after biologist after engineer to help Tony make hide nor tail of the two glass-and-steel prosthetics. “Hydra tech?” They’d say. “No thank you, I like my career the way it is,” Click. Steve also watched Clint. It wasn’t clear if Clint knew, but Steve watched as his steps got surer and his shoulders got looser. He watched as Tony swiped all of his tools from his workbench, and he watched Natasha ghost through the Tower when she thought no one was home. He prayed, for the first time in a long time, that somewhere, Bucky was fighting to get home.

 

The Asset had been utilised a few more times for reconnaissance. The entire underground facility needed to be relocated, and the Asset’s job was to scout possible locations for security flaws in the ways that only he knew how: by breaking in. Sometimes, there were previous occupants who were quite perturbed to find the Winter Soldier in their buildings, but they really didn’t put up much of a fight. The Asset sent report after report until a new building was deemed suitable. He was put into Cryo for the journey. 

“You know,” One of his handlers had said after he had taken his breaths. “They say upstairs that they’re going to send him after the eyeballs that the Avengers took.” The other guy nodded. 

“Yeah, I guess R and D was pretty pissed. Guess they got some kinda metal in ‘em that they barely got ahold of the first time.” The first man whistled as he filled out the forms for putting The Asset into Cryo. 

“Hope they let us get ahold of  _ that _ fight footage. Bound to be good.” The other man snapped his gum with a grin as he buckled The Asset to the dolly.

“Sure, sure. Like they haven’t let us at least have the footage.”


	8. Search... and Destroy?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha comes clean with Tony, Steve tells Clint about his progress with Bucky, and Clint comes clean with no one because that's not his style.

“Clint, come on, you gotta be patient.” Tony pleaded. Clint was perched on the corner of Tony’s work bench. Touching things. Every time Clint’s hand wandered too close to a sharp, pointy, sticky, or even better, electrified thing, Tony halfheartedly wished he’d get zapped or stabbed, but only a little. Just enough to make him stop  _ touching things. _

“I am patient,” Clint protested. He’d usually be watching from afar, in a vent or something equally antisocial, but his ‘aids didn’t have that far of a range and Tony didn’t really talk to himself too much anyway. He started fiddling with something else and Tony squawked in alarm.

“Enough! No touching!” He decreed, gingerly taking the bauble back. Clint frowned and crossed his arms. 

“Then what am I supposed to do while I wait?”

“Go eat a sandwich! Or turn on some music or something. Make JARVIS get you a car to the park. I don’t know. But don’t wait here.” Tony swallowed and put Side-Project #347 down. It was pretty volatile, at the moment. The entire Tower could have been in smithereens. “You’re like the Grim Reaper. Spook me, your timeline gets longer.” Tony said teasingly. To his luck, Clint’s face broke into a lopsided grin. 

“OooOOOOooo, Staaaaark,” He mocked, wiggling his fingers in Tony’s direction. Tony chuckled. 

“You’d be more intimidating if you were a ball of lint. You were spookier when you were quiet.” Clint laughed and slid off of the table.

_ Five steps until you reach a second table, sir.  _ JARVIS told him in his ear. He bared his teeth, knowing that JARVIS was just trying to help. He knew the Tower by now. The only thing that tripped him up would be chairs or shoes (Steven!) left in places they shouldn’t be.

“Hey, man,” Tony said, actually conveying real emotion. Clint stopped, turning halfway and resting his upper thigh on the bench. “Seriously, we’re going to get this done. I get that you want to be here to make sure it gets done right, but you gotta trust me here, buddy.” Clint nodded tersely and put his hands in his pockets. “I know it’s been too long.” Tony cleared his throat. “And you gotta know I’ve been trying,” 

“Tony,” Clint said, uncrossing his arms and standing. “You haven’t been sleeping more than five hours in how many days, man? Come on. You’ve been doing your best.” It sounded like Tony sat… Shuffled? Clint was lucky that he got words, let alone ambient noise. “Tony?” He asked, after a minute.

“You’re an odd bird, Hawkeye,” Tony said simply. Clint’s codename, his tag, what he lived and breathed now stung him. “Go make a sandwich. I gotta get some work done before I hit the sack.”

 

Natasha came quietly into Tony’s lab, just missing Clint. She had been standing there while Clint gave Tony careful assurance that he was fine. If he’s joking, he’s fine in the eyes of the other Avengers. Natasha knew better. She saw him wince when JARVIS spoke to him. She watched him lay in her bed. His own sheets haven’t been changed since before he and Barnes went out on their mission. She knew because she hadn’t changed them. When Clint had reminded Tony of how little sleep he was actually getting, she had leaned against the doorframe and Tony had looked at her. She put a finger to her lips. He nodded and dismissed Clint with a frown and a wave of his hand. Once Clint was sufficiently far away, Natasha sat where he had been sitting.

“He’s gotten taller. Broader. He’ll need a new bow.” She said quietly. Tony nodded. 

“Why do you think I told him to go make a sandwich? He, Thor, Barnes and Steve could get in an eating contest with the Hulk, and my money’s on Clint.” He grumbled. “Why aren’t you talking to him?” Natasha frowned. Of course Tony would cut straight to the quick. 

“I’m not going to offer him false platitudes and small talk.” She scoffed. “You have no idea how those are supposed to work, do you, Stark?” She said, voice like silk.

“I’m working on it.” He growled. They stared at each other for a few moments. 

“What if I told you that I could help?”

 

Clint was sitting at the breakfast bar with a sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly. The only safe toppings for a sandwich, at present. He was tired of sniffing lunch meat and really hoping it wasn’t Thor’s. Steve (he could tell because he dropped his tennis shoes) came into the kitchen from a run, he guessed. He was kinda stinky. 

“Hey, man.” He said clearly. His over-enunciation set Clint’s teeth on edge, but he knew it was necessary for communication. “PB and J?” Clint nodded with half a sandwich in his mouth. When he had washed it down with some milk (which he hadn’t spilled on the counter this time) he cracked a grin at Steve’s direction.

“Yeah, y’know, pretty self-contained. I’ve been absolutely starved since I got home,” He said jovially. Steve chuckled. He was watching Clint carefully. Not once did his false bravado shudder, but Steve could see it in the set of his shoulders that he was wildly uncomfortable. 

“It’s probably because you hit a growth spurt. Super serum does that to you.” Clint raised an eyebrow. Growth spurt? He felt a little more awkward of limb, but he couldn’t be certain. “Your appetite will level out pretty soon, I think.” Clint nodded, wolfing the rest of the sandwich. 

“How big am I?” He asked after chugging the rest of the milk. “I mean, I bonked my shower head the other day, so I know I’m bigger,” He trailed off, thinking how weird this conversation got in the space of one incredibly odd sentence. Steve got a glass of water while he hemmed and hawed about how Clint stacked up.

“Bigger than me, smaller than Thor,” Genuine surprise crossed Clint’s face.

“Wait, what?” Steve laughed.

“Yeah. You’re a pretty big guy, now.”

“So that’s why none of my clothes fit right,” He grumbled. “I feel like Thor looks in street clothes.” Steve snorted into his glass of water.

“We’ll have to go find you some new clothes. Like I said, you should be leveling out soon.” Clint nodded, grateful that Steve had felt something like this before. Steve finished his water and corralled both of their dishes and sinked them, then sat next to Clint. 

“Any idea about Bucky?” Clint asked after giving himself a few mental pep talks. The man saved his life, probably more than one time. Steve took a deep breath in.

“The place where you were is nigh on deserted. We assume they went deep, deep underground to avoid more headbutting with us.” He began. “We’re pulling on all the strings we can get our mitts on. Trust me.” The last sentence betrayed how truly rough around the edges Steve had gotten the past few days. Clint nodded.

“If there’s anybody I trust, it’s you, Cap.” He said, clapping a hand on Steve’s back.

  
The Asset casually walked down 7th, nearing the West 57th intersection. He had been told to ‘mingle’ and ‘act naturally’, so he assumed taking long walks in the Park were a part of it. His new handler was a little… off. He was less strict than the man in the suit. They had found him with an electrical wire wrapped around his neck in his own home about a week ago, and half of his old superiors were either marked KIA or MIA. The Asset rankled at the multiple changes of hands he had gone through in the past three weeks. He was just getting into his stride. When his superiors weren’t around to give him direct orders, he could follow his mission objective a little more loosely. Each morning, he left “his” apartment around 6 and made it down to the Park just in time to watch a tall, blonde man begin stretching. He wasn’t sure why, but he really felt like this rhythm had been the usual for as long as he’d existed. It didn’t really matter, overall, to his mission anyway. With the tablet he had been given from his superiors, he could watch the beacon from the Park or in the apartment, or the train, or whatever. He was told to watch, wait, and go wherever the beacon pointed to when it turned on. The Asset was to collect the property of Hydra, at whatever the cost.


	9. The Nomad Scientist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce finds an old friend still on the run for deserting Hydra, but is he capable of giving Clint what he sorely needs?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This kinda took off, which I'm pumped about! What I'm not pumped about is that I'm a collegiette, so I can't churn out two chapters a day anymore for you lovelies. It's really neat to know that I've inspired at least one person to write!

Tony had just sat and stared at her. She slid a worn manila folder to him. The saying goes that “realisation dawned on him”, but it didn’t “dawn”. It was more like a roll of thunder, followed by a crack of lightning. Natasha hadn’t been taking missions as the Black Widow, Avenger, Savior of New York. She had been taking missions as the Black Widow, Spy/Assassin Hybrid, Destroyer of Many. As she spoke, a fire in her eyes caught light and threatened to burn Tony as well. He slid from his stool and paced far enough away to avoid the heat waves. 

“Natasha, what you’re saying is absolutely insane. Steve won’t fall for it. Bruce will fall for it, and that’s a problem, because I don’t think the Big Guy will want to have any part in it, and Clint sure as hell won’t bite.” Natasha smiled, but it was more like baring her teeth.

“Do you think I would purposefully put his life in danger?” She asked quietly. Tony gaped for a moment.

“Natasha, that’s not-”

“He is the reason why I am still alive, Stark.” She reminded him coldly, popping the ‘k’. It made his name sound like a swear word. “This is the only chance we have at getting him back.” She said after a while. Tony wiped his face with his hand, then looked back at Natasha. Her eyes were still on fire. “My contacts are good. My intel is good. It won’t fail.”

“It can’t fail,” Tony said soberly. “Biggest question, though. How do we get Hydra to bite?”

 

Clint had found a few decent podcasts on his StarkTech thing Tony gave him for beta testing. Apparently, with absolutely no outside influence, he was breaking into the accessibility tech field. Well, making the accessibility tech field, really. It was a huge learning curve, but he eventually got the hang of it enough that he could listen to some fiction podcasts. He was sitting on the floor in the kitchen with some snacks when someone began running down the hallway. Clint paused his podcast, frowning. 

“Hello?” He asked. The person had jogged right past the kitchen but came back when he called.

“Clint,” Steve said. It sounded like sunshine was coming out of his ass, and Clint felt a distinct feeling of loss for eyeball rolling. “Were you on the  _ floor _ ?” He asked him, concerned.

“What’s going on, man?” Clint asked, batting Steve’s question out of the air with a hand wave.

“Bruce finally found somebody who owes him a big enough favor to help us out. He’s on his way over now.” It felt like a cold bucket of water was dumped on him. 

“Who is it?” Clint asked, feeling excitement bubble in his chest. His face broke into a grin, and he shook his head. “No, it doesn’t matter. Do I need to do anything?” He bent and located his snack plate and the phone.

“I’m going to get Tony. We’ll be back in a flash.” Steve said as he took off again. Clint set his plate on the counter by the sink and put the phone on the brunch bar. 

“Clint?” Bruce asked. The Tower felt more alive than it had in two weeks. “Hey, did Steve catch you?” Clint nodded and met Bruce in the middle of the room.

“Yeah, yeah. So what do I do? Where are we doing this thing?” There was a careful pause.

“There’s no real guarantee he’s going to be able to implant them, Clint,” He said lightly. “But he’s got some… experience, in Hydra tech, and he might be able to tell Tony how to do it.” Clint felt some of the bubbling excitement in his chest dampen.

“Alright.” He said nodding. Steve ran back down the hallway.

“We’re all going to meet in the lab,” He said, still sounding the very picture of a golden ray of sun. Clint grinned a shook his head. “Convenient the guy was in New York.” He said brightly to Bruce. Bruce nodded vigorously back. 

“Yeah, the man is practically a nomad, for obvious reasons.” They stopped at the door of Stark’s lab. “Clint, in full disclosure, Niko, he… He defected from Hydra about ten years ago.” There was a chilly silence as Clint’s shoulder muscles bunched up again.

“What do you mean, defected?” He asked.

“He fell off the face of the map. He had only been a satellite scientist since he began his career, didn’t really know what went on there. They brought him into the fold, and he defected almost immediately after he got a glimpse at what they were doing. They had been telling him that he would be creating the newest and best prosthetics on the planet to help war victims,” Bruce’s story tumbled out and Clint’s heart lurched near the end.

“They didn’t tell him which side.” Clint finished for him. Bruce clasped his forearm.

“You can back out at any time.” Heat flared up in Clint’s chest and his face twisted into a snarl.

“I don’t care where the guy came from,” Clint said, taking his arm from Bruce’s grasp. There was a pause where they stood there and Clint took a few deep breaths. He controlled his face and tilted his head down in embarrassment. “I just need this to work.”

“So do we,” Steve said, patting a hand on his back. “C’mon, pal. We’re going to get you fixed up.”

 

When they had gone into the lab, Natasha was already there. She and Tony were looking at each other like something had passed between them, but Steve couldn’t figure out the problem. 

“JARVIS told me,” Tony started, neatening his tools and supplies. He put away all of the side-projects he had been working on to give his brain a break from those damn eyes. Steve held an Allen wrench in his hand and twirled it as Tony rattled off the kinds of authorisation codes he had had to run to allow the good doctor into the building, let alone up to this floor, and how an entire security team was going to be tailing him until the hit the floor. Clint chewed a nail as he leaned his right hip into a workbench. 

“So he’s en route now?” He said when Tony was done monologuing. Tony stopped packing his stuff away and stood opposite of Clint, with his left hip dug into the same bench. It was quiet for too long, and Clint uncrossed his arms and put his weight on both of his feet, listening. 

“Clint, you gotta know,” Tony said carefully. He paused and looked around the room. “Guys, can Clint and I get a minute before Nikolai gets here?” There was a beat of more silence before Bruce cleared his throat.

“I’ll get a pot of coffee on. Get the genius juice flowing.” He slapped Clint on the back and gave Tony an encouraging look, mouthing ‘Be. Nice.’ Steve followed suit, but Natasha lingered. 

“That means everybody, Casper.” Tony said in a lower register than usual. Natasha’s eyes narrowed, but she left as well. A million thoughts were running through Clint’s mind. He cleared his throat to ask Tony what was going on, but his mouth was full of cotton. “Okay, man, you need to be aware that there might be some crazy side effects here that none of us will have thought of.” He said and Clint perched on the edge of the workbench. 

“Okay,” Clint said, drawing out the last syllable. “I still want to get this done,” He said, furrowing his brows. He wasn’t sure what Tony was getting at. 

“No, absolutely, but you gotta be prepared for this shit to go completely sideways.” Tony began. “Sometimes when you introduce an inorganic material into the body like that, you get some weird rejection, or you could be allergic to the metal, or all kinds of strange shit.” Realisation washed over Clint, and he was sure his face was reddening. Tony was coming from experience. He could picture the blue-white glow against Tony’s probably greasy and burnt shirt. Against the white bandages, he had to look like he was sunburnt.

“Oh, um,” He replied eloquently. “What are we looking at here?” Tony breathed through his teeth at both the turn of phrase and the question itself. 

“Honestly, it’s Hydra tech. It could be anything. If you feel funny, you call me. If you don’t feel funny, you call me. Hot, cold, itchy, dry, wet, anything, I don’t care. Got it, Birdbrain?” Clint nodded. “I sent everybody away so I could make sure you actually did it.” Tony said, trying to be flip. It came out too forced. “You haven’t said anything to anybody about anything, man. You gotta keep us in the loop.” Clint nodded again, woodenly. 

“I just don’t really want to talk about it.” Tony watched him for a moment before Clint took the cue to continue. “It’s stupid, I know, I know you’re supposed to decompress after something wild like this,” Tony pulled a face and mouthed the word ‘wild’. “But I feel like we aren’t done. I’m still on-mission, man.” 

“Mhm,” Tony said slowly. There was a knock at the door.

“Hey, guys? Niko’s here.” 


	10. Pyrrhus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sure, Clint can see again, but at what cost?

The man called Nikolai Astakhov was too quiet for Clint’s tastes. He had Clint lie down on one of Stark’s cleared workbenches, and made him take off the bandages. After Clint hesitated for a moment too long, he made the rest of the Avengers leave the room. Steve muttered something about Musical Chairs. 

“Now. Bandages.” He said curtly, but not unkindly to Clint. Clint carefully peeled the tape away from his cheek, his face underneath clammy and cooling in the air. “Ah,” Astakhov said quietly. “Son, you’ve not a lot to be grateful for, but one thing you do have is that they allowed my old colleague to be your surgeon.” Clint grinned, even though something tightened in his gut. Grateful? “He and I joined the team at the same time. I joined because I was told I would change the world. He joined because they could give him the world.” He sighed, the sound of a world-weary soul. “Now, Clinton,” He winced. “Have you considered the idea that this may not work?”

“Once or twice,” Clint said tiredly. “What do I have to lose by trying?” Nikolai considered this for a moment. “Unless you’re going to shave my head again,” Clint cracked, grin returning. It had been three and a half weeks since the haircut and the other thing, and with this super serum jig that he had going, his hair was almost back to previous glory. The doctor patted his knee and stood.

“No, my boy, I won’t be cutting your hair again.” Clint nodded, feeling adrift in space. He had become much, much more tactile in such a short amount of time. “Now, I’ve looked at these prosthetics, and the good news is I am quite familiar with the design. I had been working on it before I realised what Hydra really was. The bad news, however, is that they have added their own baubles to them. I am not familiar with every detail of the creation and barring taking them apart, I won’t know exactly what I’m dealing with until I start to implant them and get feedback from you.” Clint nodded slowly.

“May I?” He asked cooly, outstretching his hand. There was a moment, and then Nikolai handed him a cold, smooth ball. He rolled it around in his hand for a moment. There were wires sticking out of the back with couplings on the end. “Do they look weird?” Nikolai sat down next to Clint again, where he had been stretched out. 

“A little.” He allowed. Clint grimaced and leaned back, sticking out the eyeball. Nikolai took it. “Would you like me to call your friends back in?” Clint furrowed his eyebrows and reached for the bandage, but Nikolai had moved it. For what seemed like the fiftieth time that week, his heart pounded in his chest and a steel band wound its way around his ribcage.

“I need--” He began, but it was made clear with an outstretched palm that Nikolai was already gone to get the rest of the Avengers. All the air left his lungs. Blood rushed to his head. The last thing he felt before the brown-out was a small, cold hand on his upper arm.

 

The Asset sat on a bench with his tablet. The air was clear, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and he was scowling at a man sitting next to him. He was sloppily eating a footlong sandwich with the crunchiest lettuce on the planet. The man, to add to his horrible demeanor, was also loudly talking on the phone with someone named ‘Maisie’ and he wasn’t being incredibly nice about it. 

“Maisie, I’m telling you,” He slapped his maw open and shut, spittle stringing from lip to lip. The Asset focused more intently on the tablet, but nothing interesting was happening. “I’m fucking telling you, Maisie,” His voice lowered and he set his sandwich down next to him. “If I ever catch you talking to that stupid fuck ever again,” The Asset rolled his eyes. On top of eating like a slob and talking loudly on the phone in public, he was one of  _ those _ . The Asset stood with a huff and began to walk away. He couldn’t possibly focus on the tracker in these conditions.

 

“Panic attack,” was what Bruce had said. Clint called it “The goddamn Apocalypse,”. It had felt like the end of the world, and he wasn’t sure if he was glad that he was wrong or not. The world, for the most part, was pretty alright, but if it had ended, he wouldn’t be sitting there being stared at by nearly everyone he knew and loved. 

In response to his earlier freak-out, everything in preparation for the surgery was careful. After Natasha had carefully carded a hand through his hair to bring him back from Bizarro Land, Steve carefully told Niko how long it had been. Niko carefully took a few notes on his steno pad. Tony carefully prepared the room for whatever was going to come next, and Bruce carefully reminded Clint of the dangers associated with implants. Clint’s teeth were on edge and he could hear his heartbeat in his ears. 

“Alright everyone,” Niko declared. “I’d like to keep Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark, but everyone else must wait outside.” There were a few shuffling feet, leaving only Natasha and Steve to wait out in the kitchen. Niko placed a warm, gloved hand on Clint’s forehead. 

“Are you ready, Clint?” He asked as he swabbed at Clint’s face with a cool liquid.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” He said with a false grin. Niko and Tony shared a look. Tony went to wash his hands as Bruce pulled on purple gloves. 

“The whole thing should only take a few hours, and unfortunately, you’ll be awake for the whole thing.” Niko said while rustling near Clint’s head. Clint swallowed and couldn’t find any words. Would it hurt? He wanted to ask. Are you sure it’ll work? Another question bubbled beneath the surface. Why are you doing this for me? The spy wanted to know. Instead, what came out of Clint was this:

“Thank you,”

 

The Asset had been in the outdoor seating section of a coffee shop for some time now. He was drinking an Americano, which the polite young woman at the till suggested. She had carried it out on a teetering silver tray with other patrons’ drinks, and he had tried to give her a smile. She thought it looked more like he was a panther baring his teeth at his prey.

Looking natural was hard for him. He was a weapon, inhuman, ready to spring to his true purpose at any moment. When he moved, it was always too quiet for the normal people around him. They were unnerved by his purposeful movements. When he didn’t move, people were uncomfortable because it was spooky to see a human go that purposefully still. The barista didn’t spend too much time around him in the two hours he sat there, contemplating his coffee and the little red dot on his tablet. After his second cup of coffee, this time, a macchiato, he looked back down to his tablet. 

A green blinking light. They were on. He left a small stack of bills on the table, shoved his tablet in his bag, and vaulted over the small fence separating paying customers from the filth in the streets.

Finally, he would be used to his full extent. Get back the tech, by any means necessary.

 

Clint rolled his shoulders out blearily. He had been laying for a two, two and a half hours on a cold bench. 

“Why can’t we go to a hospital for this? They’ll at least have the good stuff,” Clint had snarked. Niko had paused, then patted his arm.

“If you’d like to fight off Hydra while I put in your new eyes, be my guest. Just don’t move too much, eh?” Clint was red-faced and quiet for a few minutes after that. 

“Do they feel weird?” Tony asked for the third time.

“No, man. Can I take open my eyes?” Tony tapped away, trying to get JARVIS to hook up to the tech in the prosthetics.

“Yeah, but we aren’t calibrated yet, so if you get all kinds of error messages or whatever don’t blame me,” Clint cracked his right eye a sliver, and saw brightness. He wanted to open both immediately but considered the backlash headache that could be involved and took things much, much more slowly than he wanted. Things started coming into focus when Tony took in a sharp intake of breath.

“There’s a GPS signal outgoing on those things.” He snapped. Steve stood, rushing over to the screen. Clint sat up, opening his eyes. Everything was sharp, even sharper than before, and in high contrast. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked, swinging his legs over the end of the bench and standing. The man he presumed was Niko packed a bag quickly, and rushed over to Bruce, pumping his hand up and down.

“I’m so pleased to see those are working out for you, young man,” He said hurriedly. “Know that I had no idea that this would happen, but I can’t be here if they are on the way. They will kill me on sight.” He gasped. 

“Out the back door, good doctor,” Tony gestured. “JARVIS, get him a car. A plain one, with one of our drivers.”

“On the way, sir,” JARVIS replied.

Niko paused on his way out the door as the Avengers suited up for whatever was on its way.

“Another thing, Clinton,” He said, boring into Clint’s new eyes. “Don’t let them catch you. Once they get their hands on you, it’ll already be too late.”


	11. Square One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hydra won't let their newest asset go that easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys. I think it is so, so cool that so many of you are as into this as I am! I'm sorry that I couldn't keep up with the breakneck pace that I had during the summer, but I swear I'm not going to drop this fic! I have most of it planned out in my brain, so all that's left is just finding time to sit down and write it! Thanks for hanging on!

“Clint, hang back,” Tony said, putting a metal hand on his chest. Even in the suit, Clint was taller than Tony. It felt like he was wearing stilts.

“Why? I’m all fixed up,” Clint protested.

“Because we don’t know how they’re going to react to anything. If they have a GPS in there, what else are they hiding? They could have a kill switch or something. Hang back on this one.” Clint clenched his jaw but nodded. Tony had a point, which he usually does. Clint moved to the command centre with Bruce.

“I’m not going to call up the Big Guy without urgent need,” He explained. Tony and Steve were posted at the entrances of the Tower, with Natasha doing whatever Natasha does. Thor still hadn’t returned from Jane’s, but he was supposedly filled in. Thor giving up on him left a knot in Clint’s stomach. He let Bruce sit in Tony’s command chair and he hovered around, looking at all the monitors. There was no army. There was no battalion of Hydra marching down the street to the tower. His stomach continued to sour around the knot.

“Do you think there’s something funny?” He asked Bruce.

“I was just thinking that myself.” He murmured.

“Guys, there’s nobody here,” Tony said over the comm radio. Bruce picked up Tony’s headset and confirmed that they thought there was something strange. 

“Well, I’ll just come inside-” The communications went silent. Clint’s hand went to his hearing aid to see if it was just feedback, but Bruce swore and he heard that loud and clear.

“We lost connection,” He began, but the room went what Clint assumed was supposed to be completely dark. He could still see clearly and watched with mild curiosity as Bruce made a shocked expression and groped for his phone. Bruce then zeroed in on Clint’s face. 

“Your eyes have a bit of a green sheen on them, Clint.” Clint raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, just wait til I activate the x-ray vision on these puppies,” He joked. He watched Bruce roll his eyes as he turned on the flashlight on his phone.

“Did somebody get past Cap and Tony?”

“Hopefully not. I’m going to go turn on the backup power, maybe see if there was something damaged.” Clint stood and picked up his combat comms unit and swapped it with his hearing aid. “If they cut back in, we’ll know about it.”

“Alright. Be careful,” Bruce put in his own comms unit, and they tested it to make sure they could hear each other. They could, which only confused them more. 

Clint took the stairs to the basement, halfway down realising that he could do some pretty sick parkour moves off the walls and railings now. It got him down the stairs faster, with only minimal questioning from Bruce as to what all the noise was. He felt faster and stronger and wondered if this is what Bucky and Steve felt like all the time. 

It was short work switching on the backup power, something he was grateful to Tony for. The second they whirred to life, his comms were overloaded with terrible feedback. He jumped a mile before tearing it out and swearing as he bolted for the elevator.

“War room, JARVIS, at Mach 3.” He felt the elevator shoot up a few floors and he watched the floor display closely. Two floors before his stop, the elevator lurched. “What the-” He didn’t even have time to get vulgar before the top of the elevator opened like a tin can. He popped his comm device back in and found that the feedback was gone. “Guys?” No answer. A man dropped down into the elevator with him, and he quickly realised it was Barnes.

“Shit,” He said, frantically climbing up the side of the elevator toward the peeled-off top. Bucky grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him back down into the cab. “Shit, Barnes, it’s me!” Bucky’s steel grey eyes were cold, and his grin didn’t warm them. Clint punched him in the mouth with a small twinge of satisfaction. That was for the sore jaw four weeks ago. There was buzzing in his ear from his comms. He wasn’t paying enough attention to actually process what was being said. Surprisingly, Bucky stumbled back. Clint used the moment of shock to get him to the ground and subdued until somebody could come give him a hand, but just as he grabbed Bucky’s metal arm to try and contain him, the other hand swept up with a cartridge with a needle on the end. He let go of Bucky and tried to block the other hand. The world was going in slow motion. Was this quicker reflexes or panic? He wasn’t sure. Clint blocked the initial stab with a grip of Bucky’s wrist, but in the dirtiest move of the century, Bucky dropped the syringe and caught it with the other hand and stabbed him in the inner thigh. A rush of cold swept up his leg, and he was conscious just long enough to feel Bucky sweep the hearing aids out of his ears and watch him stomp on them.

 

“Shit,” came Clint’s tinny voice over the speakers in Tony’s headset. 

“Barton?” Tony replied. Clint huffed and puffed for a moment.

“Shit, Barnes, it’s me!” A cold hand gripped at Tony’s chest. 

“Barton, where are you?” Tony flew into the landing pad for the suit and ran into the building. He met Bruce in the hallway, and Steve assured them both over the comms that he was on the way inside.

“JARVIS, where is Barton?” JARVIS said an odd garbled sentence just as Steve radioed in the broken elevator. What the hell had Barnes done to the tech around here? Tony flew down the hallway to peel open the elevator doors. He looked down and saw that the top of the elevator had been opened, and there was a pile of mashed electronic bits that Tony quickly identified as Barton’s hearing aids in the corner. The doors had been peeled open on this level as well. 

“Steve, are you coming up the stairs?”

“Yes,” He huffed back. “What’s going on?”

“It looks like Barnes took Barton, but if he hasn’t passed you yet, he hasn’t left the Tower.” Tony flew out of the gap on the floor they must have escaped from. 

“I’ll move to you on the staircase, you check the floor they got out on. Make sure they don’t leave this Tower.” Steve said, not allowing his Captain America demeanour to slip. Tony flew out of the elevator and tried to ask suit-JARVIS where Barnes and Barton were, as it seemed that Barnes didn’t have the jump on suit-JARVIS.

“Sir, there are no other people on this floor,” JARVIS reported.

“Are you saying that because your brains are scrambled in the Tower or because there’s really nobody here?” Tony challenged.

“There is no other people on this floor, Sir,” JARVIS replied after a few moments. Tony sighed and scoped the floor out manually.

“Cap, are you seeing anybody?” He asked, beginning to feel frustration bubble in his chest.

“Tony, I’m a floor below you. You have to come see this.” There was real defeat in his voice. Tony could feel his heartbeat in his throat. He tore down the stairs, finding Steve standing in front of a pried-open elevator shaft. A rope had been affixed to the floor outside of the elevator.

“They rappelled down to the first floor in the elevator shaft. They went right past me.” Steve rubbed his eyes. Tony tried to come up with something soothing to say, but he didn’t have anything until a thought washed over him.

“Where the hell is Natasha?” 


	12. One of Their Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky isn't quite sure why, but he doesn't stay an Asset long when Clint's around.

The Hydra transport was waiting for them four blocks over. It was a garish carpet cleaning company van, bright orange and yellow. The Hydra agents secured Clint as the Asset watched. He was actually snoring. When Clint brought his handcuffed hands up to hold onto the collar of his tee shirt during his sleep, the part of the Asset that was still Bucky laughed. The man could sleep anywhere like he was in his own bed. Outwardly, the Asset’s eyes caught a glimmer for a fraction of a second before becoming the usual picture of “friendly disposition”. 

 

Natasha put on Steve’s helmet and kicked the bike to life. She figured he’d have time to be pissed off about the grand theft auto later, after she delivered one past-expiry brainwashed assassin and one stupid blonde expert marksman on his doorstep. She would have loved to radio back and get the rest of the team on it, but the damn radio was Barnsed and was only picking up static and the occasional CB transmission. Natasha had stuck them in her pocket before she got on the bike. She had eyes on the van and planned to follow it until she could get a hold of everyone else. She couldn’t save Clint once. She wouldn’t let it happen again.

 

“What the hell did he do to these?” Bruce and Tony were cycling through the channels on the radio. Tony was wearing his black jumpsuit that he wears under his suit, sitting next to where Bruce worked on the workbench in the lab. Tony was obviously trying to make Bruce uncomfortable with his black spandex-gilded ass, but Bruce would not be swayed. Steve, however, while sure that Tony was only doing this to cut the tension from missing not one -- not two -- but now three teammates, was annoyed at Tony’s butt slowly sliding its way across the workbench. 

“Can we talk about it after Tony gets a pair of sweats on?” Steve asked, waving a hand at Tony. The offending butt slid off of the bench, and the ass attached to it smirked. 

“See something you like, Rodgers?” Steve rolled his eyes, but the tips of his ears heated. 

“Tony, not now,” Bruce said tiredly. “It looks like he had something on him that would temporarily scramble electronics because now both JARVIS and the radios are fine.” 

“Can you try to radio Natasha?” Steve asked. Bruce tried various messages on all the frequencies that they designated as team frequencies, but he got no response. 

“So either her comms are out, or she’s in range of Barnes.” Tony said flatly. “Let’s track her GPS and see if we can get a location.” He pulled up the tracking screen but frowned when it showed her simultaneously somewhere in the northeast of Bosnia, Palo Alto, California, and West 96th and Broadway. “She’s still scrambled, so she’s with Barnes.” 

“But we don’t know where they are,” Steve said, nodding. “Can we get JARVIS on street cameras to see where they could have gone once they left the building?” Tony waved a hand at him.

“Already on it, Star Spangled Smartass. He’s running facial recognition on all three wayward spies.” Steve nodded again, slowly, almost like he didn’t know he was doing it.

“Alright. So what now?” Bruce pinched his nose.

“We wait.” Tony said, clapping him on the back. “Shower up, eat something, and we’ll be ready when JARVIS gets us some more intel. If we know anything about Natasha, she’ll have a pigeon drop us a line or something pretty soon.”

 

Natasha watched from an alley across from the docks. They just walked a bleary Clint, held up by the Winter Soldier, on board a small unnamed vessel. Clint wasn’t even wearing shoes. Natasha bared her teeth at the sight. She tried to radio in again but still got static in answer. She was debating whether or not to board the ship when she saw someone locking up their taco truck at the other end of the alley. She started toward him, ruffling her hair and pinching her cheeks. 

“Excuse me, sir?” She asked, wavering her voice. He turned to her as he was pocketing his keys. “Can I use your phone? I just got mugged.”

“Honey, what are you doing walking alone down here?” He pulled out his phone and unlocked it. “Did they hurt you?” She shook her head as she dialled Tony’s number. 

“I just got lost,” She babbled. He nodded as he unlocked the truck again.

“Come on, sit down,” He pulled a folding chair out and set it up inside the truck. “I’ll lock the door while you talk to your friend. Nobody’s getting in here without my say-so.” Natasha let a few tears slip down her face as Tony answered. The door shut and she told him where she was quickly. He said he would send Happy to “pick her up” to avoid freaking out the nice taco truck man. Hap would circle around the block and bring her right back to the docks. She rapped on the door.

“You’ve got a ride?” The man asked her. She nodded and sniffed a few times.

“Thank you so much,” She said, handing back the phone. “The world needs more people like you.” His ears turned red. 

“It’s the best I can do, you know?” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “I don’t got a magic hammer and I don’t got a flying metal suit. All I got is a taco truck.” He shrugged.

“And a heart of gold.” She said, smiling genuinely. His ears turned redder. “People have done more with less. Don’t give up hope.” 

  
  


Bucky sat next to Clint on the boat ride to the ship. He had been ordered to watch him, but he was going to do that already. His hair was growing back. He had only a few glimpses at the strange silver eyes while they were fighting. This Clint was massive, in comparison to before. He had dropped back off to sleep after Bucky had put him down on the bench. After a short debrief, one of the men from the retrieval crew came and put bulky handcuffs onto Clint’s wrists. The second a hand touched him, Clint was only pretending to sleep. Bucky saw it in a hitch of his breath and a stillness that he didn’t have a second ago. He hoped Clint wouldn’t try anything because the second part of that order was something he didn’t want to do. 

 

Clint woke to a hand on his wrist, and cold metal being looped around his forearms. He didn’t give away that he was awake to allow him an advantage of surprise if they tried anything silly. He allowed himself to be annoyed that Bucky had taken his hearing aids, but he understood that it was to protect him. To what end, he had no clue. This time, he had spooky cyborg eyeballs that he wasn’t quite sure how they worked yet going for him. Based on this face alone, he didn’t have a lot of faith that he was getting out alive. When he was sure the person hovering in front of him was gone, he cracked an eye to get an idea of his surroundings. He was sitting opposite a window and a man holding a gun. The window showed the deck of a ship and the water, which explained why his stomach felt like it was going to turn itself inside out. He felt a leg bump his and he shifted to look at who it was, no longer pretending to be asleep. Bucky looked back at him intensely and flicked his eyes to where the man with the gun sat. Clint followed the look and noticed the man was talking. 

“- and if you give me any trouble, I’m authorised to shoot you.” The guy said. “Are we clear?” Clint nodded.

“Crystal.” He replied. The guy relaxed a little bit, seeing that he wasn’t going to be fighting a super spy any time this afternoon. There was a swell of pride when Clint figured he was a super spy. He may be caught now, but he wouldn’t stay caught. He looked at Bucky and wondered if he knew who Clint was at this point. Clint knew that Bucky eventually walked off the effects of the mind control, but he wasn’t sure where Bucky was at in the cycle.

Bucky’s eyes caught his. There was a desperation in them as a wrinkle appeared in between his eyebrows. Clint nodded at him, and Bucky looked him up and down.

If Clint didn’t know ASL, he would have missed it.

SORRY Bucky signed, slowly and lazily, after he allowed his gaze to slide to the window across from them. Clint nodded again, just as slow and lazy. He was there and in charge of himself. Perfect. 

 

The sensation of actually breaking the brainwash was new to Bucky. Just an hour ago, he knew he wasn’t present in his actions. The first thing he remembered, even foggily, was stomping on Clint’s hearing aids. He knew they’d try and do something else to him if they knew about that, so he tried to protect him as much as possible. 

It usually took weeks and weeks of fighting against whatever they did to him for him to start making memories. The only thing new was Clint. Maybe having someone he knew and knew him back in his presence made the brainwash less effective.

Clint shifted on his bench. 

“I understand why I was kidnapped and all,” He drawled, wiggling his toes. “But did we really have to do this before I put shoes on?” The Hydra agent suppressed a grin and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry. In a while, you’ll get a full set of gear. Hydra takes care of its own.” 


	13. Clean Slate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky has a plan. It's a shit plan, probably going to end in either fire or a firefight, but it's a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys. So, uh, not dead? 
> 
> In all seriousness, I'm really sorry for the delay. There's been a lot of crazy stuff going on in my personal life lately, and I let this slip a bit. More than a bit. Quite a lot, actually. 
> 
> Mental health is no joke, guys. I hope to get this back on the rails for anybody still hanging on!

The rest of the boat ride consisted of Clint trying to catch Bucky’s eye and Bucky steadfastly ignoring him. On a practical level, Clint knew Bucky had the right idea, but the burn of panic in Clint’s chest just really wanted some reassurance that Bucky was on his side. Once the boat stopped, they put a black bag over Clint’s head and he felt his heartbeat hammering somewhere in the vicinity of his kneecaps at the thought of not being able to  _ see _ \--

Bucky put his left hand on the small of Clint’s back and gently guided him off the boat. His breaths were coming in ragged gasps and Bucky knew Clint had to keep it together to avoid either one of their tricks tumbling out of their sleeves. 

The jolt of cool metal on the strip of skin left exposed between the band of his sweatpants  and the hem of his tee shirt grounded Clint and he slowly felt his breaths deepening. He walked carefully, rolling through his feet. Bucky, he was sure, nudged him slightly left and he hissed as he stepped on a stone. 

“Aw, the widdle Avenger hurt his tootsies,” The Hydra grunt chuckled, elbowing his friend. They shared a laugh as Bucky bared his teeth. They boarded a van but left the bag on Clint’s head. It was going to be a long ride.

  
  


“They got on a boat and went up this way.” Natasha filled the rest of the team in, showing them on the map. They hadn’t seen anything when they were scoping out the docks either. 

“They could’ve gotten into a car, or a helicopter, or a train, or literally anything. They could be sitting on the subway right now.” Tony snarked around the handful of trail mix he was crunching. A vein was visible on Steve’s forehead.

“We need to check surveillance cameras in the area and go from there.” He replied, but Tony sighed deeply.

“I had JARVIS running facial recognition, but the cameras on the docks picked up neither Bucky or Clint, so it looks like their faces were both obscured because we all know they were both there.” He crunched more trail mix.

“Let’s watch the footage the old fashioned way,” Bruce suggested, weariness heavy in his voice. “At least we’ll be able to see the getaway vehicle.” 

  
  


It felt like days, but the van finally came to a stop. The back doors opened and the grunt motioned for them to come out. Bucky stood and pulled Clint to his feet.

“Oh great, a potty break?” Clint snarked. “I’ve had to piss since we took the left at Albuquerque.” The Hydra agents largely ignored him as Bucky pushed him forward with a hand between the shoulder blades. 

“The old asset’s going to escort him down to the chair, in case he tries to put up a fight.” One said to the other, and terror trickled down Bucky’s spine. The chair. A half plan was forming in Bucky’s mind, one that was dangerous and likely to get both of them shot in the back of the head, but with a sick feeling in his gut, he realized it was all they were going to get.

 

“Well, we can try and track the plates, but it’s not likely that they’re even real,” Bruce said, glasses in one hand and pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. He released his nose and looked at Tony, who was loosely holding his bag of trail mix and staring into space. “Tony?” 

“Track,” He muttered in response. Bruce’s eyebrows knit together.

“Yeah, Tony, track. That’s what we’re doing here, remember? Rhymes with ‘snack’?” He tacked on snarkily, not able to resist a dig at the constant crunching Tony had been doing. 

“Not now, Brucie Bear, I’ve got an idea,” Tony replied, suddenly filled with a second-- third?-- wind. He chucked the bag of trail mix at the desk and ran over to the controls of the computer. Bruce’s skull thumped at the nickname, and he glared at Tony.

“Oh, good,” He said tiredly. “An idea. I’ll get the team.” 

  
  


Clint was escorted, still barefoot, to a room where the black bag was ripped off of his head. 

“No,” He had stated, trying to worm his way out of Bucky’s grip. “No, no!” The guards stepped forward and Bucky’s left arm clamped down on his shoulder. Clint met Bucky’s eyes and saw regret and pleading there before the guards pushed him into the chair. Bucky stood in his line of sight and over and over signed, SORRY. Clint screamed threats as they clamped his arms down, but they only looked amusedly at each other. The door to the room opened, and a woman that Bucky recognized as the newest handler stepped in.

“Wipe him.” She said softly, before turning to Bucky. “You’ve done well. Will you stay to watch?” She asked, and Bucky nodded once, tightly. “Good boy.” She stepped closer to Clint’s thrashing form as they started the process. Bucky’s vision swam with spots and he tried to get a grip on himself. This was all his fault. He considered his chances at breaking Clint out and just running out the door, but he knew they’d be shot on the spot. They both might be super soldiers now, but there’s only so much the serum would do for a bullet to the brain. 

Clint writhed as much as he could in the restraints, spittle flying from his mouth as he told these people  _ just  _ where he was going to stick his foot. 

“Come now,” a woman said, taking his face in her hand. “It won’t be that bad,” He bit into the soft juncture between thumb and finger until he tasted blood, and within the second she wound up with the other hand and hit him solidly in the nose. His own blood poured down his face and he bared his teeth at her, knowing he looked like a vision. She was smiling, and that made cold fingers of unease creep their way down his spine. “I like it when they’ve got spunk. They’re the most fun to break,” Clint’s head was fitted into a contraption and his eyes went wide. This was it. This was the thing that left Bucky screaming at night. This was the thing that haunted Bucky, that wouldn’t let him rest. A glance at Bucky’s face told him that he was just as terrified as Clint. 

A jolt went through his body and he couldn’t stop the screaming. It was fire, it was ice, it was electricity. His eyes slammed shut and he railed against the restraints and felt them creak under his new strength, but they didn’t budge. Had it been seconds? Had it been years? His fingers and toes were on fire and flexed them to try and put them out. 

Bucky fought the wave of nausea that threatened to expose him. He knew that the sound of Clint’s screams would come to him at night for a very, very long time.

All Clint knew was the pain. The pain was the Big Bang, it was the birth of the universe. Nothing existed before or after. The feeling of a scream being torn from his chest was the beginning and the end. Just as he thought he would come undone, it stopped. Soft hands lifted the cradle from his head and he pried his eyes open. It was a woman, and she was saying something to him. He couldn’t make it out. She wasn’t looking at him. He knew he was deaf, but he wasn’t sure why, and he was going to tell her before movement caught his eye behind her. 

SAY NOTHING. A man with a silver arm signed. Interesting. He didn’t know why, but this guy seemed trustworthy. He flicked his gaze back to the woman, who was now perched on a stool in front of him. She was saying something, but he still couldn’t quite catch it. The man with the metal arm caught his attention. SAY-R-E-A-D-Y-T-O-C-O-M-P-L-Y. He fingerspelled quickly, looking around the room for watchful eyes. 

“Ready to comply,” Clint said, throat sore and voice hoarse. 

“Beautiful,” The woman responded before turning to Bucky. “Walk with us. I want you to meet your new partner.” 

  
  


Clint was given a full set of gear that looked identical to the guy with the metal arm. He kept sneaking glances at him on the way down a hallway. He had the vague awareness that the woman was talking, but it was like listening from underwater. They stopped in a room with a few armed men standing near open capsules, barely large enough to fit a person. Bucky came to attention, and Clint followed suit. 

“Beautiful,” The woman said again. 

Bucky swallowed the rising panic in his chest. All he had to do was avoid getting wiped again before they were sent out into the field. He could do this. He had to do this. They were shoved into the cryo chambers and he watched Clint look fearfully at him. Bucky longed to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him it’d be alright, but he only leaned back into the chamber and allowed them to shut the door on him. Clint did the same, but with a marked look of panic on his face.

The cool breaths of air that followed usually soothed the Asset. They only solidified the terror that settled in Bucky’s chest. 


End file.
